Financial Advisors Are a Crucial Part of the Investing Community

October 10, 2016

As the world's largest equity derivatives clearing organization, OCC knows that financial advisors are a crucial part of the investing community. According to Cerulli Associates, there are roughly 285,000 financial advisors in the U.S. and on average they each manage money for about 150 clients, so their investment influence is substantial.

Educating financial advisors on the benefits of using listed options to manage portfolio risk is important to OCC in our efforts to help the U. S. listed options industry continue to grow. A 2015 survey conducted by the Financial Planning Association stated that only nine percent of advisors currently use or recommend listed options to their clients. We believe that is a tremendous growth opportunity for our industry, and we intend to capitalize on it. Educating and informing the financial advisor community about the responsible use of listed options is a key part of the Options Industry Council's (OIC) mission and it is core to what we do on behalf of the listed options industry.

This requires leadership and collaboration with our partner exchanges. That is why OIC, an educational cooperative run by OCC and the U.S. listed options exchanges, established the Advisor Leadership Council, a group of leading financial advisors who provide us with insights on what their peers need to better serve their clients. Our goal is to build the most engaging and relevant set of listed options education programs and learning experiences for advisors.

On May 12th, we had over 100 top advisors attend our OIC Financial Advisor Forum at the Terranea Resort. This group included representatives from 46 companies with over $15 billion in managed assets. The forum consisted of back-to-back presentations from some of the industry's most influential speakers who touched on topics like mega trends in ETFs, the election and market volatility, delivering alpha in a slow growth, low rate environment, beyond the modern portfolio theory, and more. The keynote speaker, Lynn Vavreck from UCLA, discussed the nation's current political landscape.

OIC will be well represented at a variety of advisor events coming up this month. On October 8th through the 11th, OIC will be at the Minneapolis Convention Center for the FPA National. Also on October 11th, I will be presenting "Using Options in Client Portfolios" for the FPA of Ohio Symposium. OIC's Director of FA Education, Eric Cott, will be a moderator during the NAPFA National Conference on October 12th to the 15th. Additionally, OIC will be exhibiting at the Schwab IMPACT event in San Diego from October 23rd to the 28th.

We also are strengthening our digital content offerings to advisors through an ongoing series of informative webinars. In addition, we are working with several clearing firms and responding to their specific needs for content and educational tools that will help financial advisors facilitate conversations with their clients about the responsible use of listed options.

Our goal is for OCC and OIC to be the first place financial advisors think about and go to when they are considering options and options strategies. We want OIC to be seen as the leading provider of online education in the listed options industry, and to be recognized as an organization that brings the right ideas, products and solutions to market participants.

For more OIC information and resources, visit www.OptionsEducation.org.